Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Daughter of the Nile meets denial

Understanding Dhimmitude by Bat Ye'or (2013, RVP Press) Paperback

£ 11.50

The denial and obfuscation greeting Bat Yeor's work is itself a manifestation of 'Dhimmitude' - the psychological distortion brought about by oppression. In the Jerusalem Post blog Clash of Cultures, Lyn Julius reviews the latest book by Bat Ye'or, whose work students of Middle East history ignore at their peril.

"My book is a travelling exploration through a nebulous and obscure
history. One needs the courage to face the ugly side of human conduct."

These bold words come from a diminutive but feisty grandmother who
calls herself Bat Ye'or. Her pseudonym, meaning Daughter of the Nile,
not only recalls that she came to the West as a Jewish refugee from
Egypt, but has given her a measure of personal protection from the
opprobrium her work, as a pioneer historian of Dhimmitude, has attracted
over 30 years.

Her latest book, "Understanding Dhimmitude", is a compilation of 21
lectures given over the last 20 years. The book is a tribute to Bat
Ye'or's late husband David Littman, who constantly encouraged her to
dodge the brickbats, and thrust her into the limelight.

Bat Yeor is one of the few scholars to have done a study of the
'dhimmi' condition. Likening it to 'the tip of an immense iceberg on an
infinite and unexplored continent', she began popularising the term
'Dhimmitude' in 1983: the term had been coined - under her influence,
she claims - by Bashir Gemayel, Lebanon's ill-fated Maronite president.
'Dhimmi' applies to the subjugated legal status of Jews and Christians
under Muslim rule. Bat Ye'or balks at the term 'minorities': before the
Arab Muslim conquest, Christians and Pagans were 'majorities'. They only
became minorities as a result of the attrition of slaughter,
Arabisation and Islamisation.

The 'dhimmi' condition was a consequence of 'jihad' - 'holy war' -
in which conquered populations or 'harbis' were taken as hostages,
massacred, converted, their property considered 'booty' and their women
and children taken into slavery. Later the 8th century Pact of Omar
recognised that the 'dhimmi' should be allowed to continue practising
his religion on condition he surrendered his right to self-defence to
the Muslims by paying a special tax, and submitted to certain
humiliating practices. Inability to pay the tax resulted in economic
oppression. Jews and Christians were marked out by special clothing,
and even had to wear bells in public baths. Only the 19th century
intervention of the European powers ended the unequal status of the
'dhimmi'.

"Understanding Dhimmitude" is a useful 240-page distillation of the
main concepts developed in Bat Ye'or's's five books. Almost more
illuminating, however, are Bat Ye'or's descriptions of the hostility
and vilification she has encountered over her lecturing career. She has
been struck dumb, shouted down, gagged and boycotted.

"You are a nobody," fulminated a professor at a lecture she gave
in memory of the pro-Zionist Christian James Parkes. At a Swedish
conference, a German of Pakistani origin "almost suffocated with rage".
She felt as if she had been "thrown to the wolves in a circus.". In
protest at Bat Yeor's 'methodology' and her 'lachrymose' approach to
Muslim-Jewish relations, professor Mark Cohen walked out of one of her
Hebrew University lectures with his Palestinian friend. At a conference
at St Paul's Cathedral in 2003, she was refused a right of reply to a
rant by the rabid anti-Zionist Stephen Sizer. She was never very popular
in France during the Mitterand presidency when the writer Marek Halter
was propagating the myth of 'golden age' coexistence between Muslims and
Jews. Some have accused her of making the facts fit an ideological
agenda.

The denial and obfuscation greeting Bat Ye'or's work is itself a
manifestation of 'dhimmitude', which she calls the 'psychological
distortion brought about by oppression.' The press almost never use the
word 'dhimmi'. Those who do often think it only applies to the Jews.
Bat Ye'or is at pains to emphasise that Christians living under Muslim
rule - Greeks, Armenians, Copts - are its main victims, but that over
the centuries the rich and powerful church leadership 'colluded' with
the Muslims.

Surprisingly, Bat Ye'or's work has never found much support in the
US, despite the massive influence of Christian Zionists. On the other
hand, she has been feted by some sections of the Christian community in
Britain, and counts among her friends Lady Cox, the 'vicar of Baghdad'
Canon Andrew White, and Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, whose Barnabas Fund speaks
for persecuted minorities in the Muslim world.

One would have thought that Christians should be the Jews' main
allies in the struggle against the re-imposition of the 'dhimmi ' rules
in the context of 'sharia' law - but no. Eastern Christians have
historically been the main instigators of antisemitism. Bat Ye'or
reminds us that 'dhimmi' rules were modelled on Byzantine strictures;
in its early centuries, the Palestinian church obtained a ban on Jews
living in Jerusalem. In spite of their history of persecution in the
Muslim Levant, the local Christians have been in the vanguard of
'replacement theology', which holds that 'Palestinians are the new
Jews. Although it's a theory some find a little far-fetched,
a Judeophobic Europe infatuated with the Palestinian cause - termed by
Bat Yeor 'Palestinolatry'' - is colluding with the Arabs to demonise
Israel.

But the chickens are coming home to roost, and the Arab nationalism
which eastern Christians thought would act to liberate then from
Dhimmitude has brought only misery and exile. Bat Ye'or urges Jews and
Christians alike to make the point that they are in the Orient as of
right and not under sufferance.

Like her or loathe her, there is no doubt that Bat Ye'or has made a
massive contribution towards the study of Muslim/non-Muslim relations.
Students of Middle Eastern history ignore her work at their peril.

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Once upon a time, when still living in Egypt, i was a dhimmy but did not know it!!!!What does this show? It shows that Egyptians were not extremists as they are now (for example burning churches).Thanks to Ms. Yeor for having guts. WE need people like this!

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